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New Lafayette roundabout: Gateway to city's burgeoning south?

Work began on the intersection of S. Public Road, S. 112th Street this week

By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
11/09/2012 04:51:44 PM MST

Updated:
11/09/2012 09:56:55 PM MST

Crews from GoodLanD Construction work on the new roundabout being built at the intersection of South Public Road and South 112th Street in Lafayette. (Cliff Grassmick / Daily Camera)

Design a sign

The Lafayette Urban Renewal Authority has launched a contest to choose a design for "identifier signage" that expresses Old Town Lafayette's character as creative, diverse and eclectic.

The signs will go up at two locations on U.S. 287 -- one at the southeast corner of U.S. 287 and Baseline Road and the other at southeast corner of U.S. 287 and South Boulder Road.

Graphic designers and artists are asked to submit sign designs to the Lafayette Community Development Department by 3 p.m. Dec. 3. The winner will receive a $2,300 stipend. The design concepts must incorporate the city's new Old Town logo.

LAFAYETTE -- The neighborhood known as SoLa -- short for South Lafayette -- is slowly coming into its own after years of start-and-stop growth, with new apartment units on the horizon, a fire station going up and an entryway roundabout that just broke ground this week.

The future roundabout, at the junction of South Public Road and South 112th Street, is expected to be under construction for the better part of two months. Crews have provided a temporary detour around the work site so motorists can still use the road.

"I think the roundabout is going to be a more innovative way to access the city," Councilwoman Christine Berg said.

No decision has been made on signage at the roundabout, which could point people to the north to Old Town or to the south to SoLa, but Berg said it's clear the intersection just north of U.S. 287 could serve as a major gateway for the city.

"We have an opportunity to pull some folks off the road," she said.

SoLa, which has been under development for more than four years on 80-plus acres north of Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center, has so far yielded the 250-unit Prana apartment complex and a lonely Dairy Queen. Plans call for a 240-acre apartment complex, dubbed Prasanna, and completion of an 11,000-square-foot fire station that has been under construction since the summer.

Lafayette spokeswoman Debbie Wilmot said that while no building permits have been pulled yet, things appear ready to move forward.

"The next phase of that is supposed to happen any time -- it's the second phase of that apartment complex," she said.

Brian Bair, with NAI Shames Makovsky Realty in Denver and a listing agent for the SoLa project, said the second phase could include two hotels, retail sites and a medical facility. He said an 85,000-square-foot senior living center in SoLa just went under contract.

"As the commercial market is starting to come back, we're gotten a lot of interest in the last four or five months," he said.

He said ground should break on Prasanna in March or April.

The addition of all those apartment dwellings, Berg said, should create enough of a critical mass that developers of some of the planned commercial and dining establishments will find it an opportune time to make their move.

"All those Prasanna and Prana folks are going to be looking for places to access for dining or for getting a drink after work," she said. "That level of density will require more development in that area."

Bill Hopkins, president of the Lafayette Old Town Association, said if the city plays its cards right, it could establish a southern entryway to Lafayette at the roundabout that would help both SoLa and Old Town. Already the South Public Road name has been extended south into SoLa and the city is considering what new name to give the stretch of South Public Road out to U.S. 287.

"What you end up doing is creating the best gateway you can," Hopkins said. "If the city doesn't have the funding to do that now, it could create the vision to fill in the blanks when the time comes."

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